Saturday Night (2010)

Umar spent mornings haggard and desperate at his kitchen table, the day’s paper spread like wings, his diary waiting for any news of the funeral. Then the day’s lunch at the Sonic where Gary worked, the hammer working Umar’s chest like torture, images of Rita behind closed eyes. At night he lingered outside Boat’s bar, wracked completely. Listening for either name, Rita or Gary.

When his wife left him, Umar barely noticed. In bed his head ran out of control, replaying that Friday night when a few drinks with Dave turned into a coke binge and disaster. The hammer cracked and Umar remembered cocaine, that Deeks shit itself, then the club and Rita dancing like a dream. How she leaned over the Deeks, her old man’s face creased beautifully. Nose like a shovel. Dave and Kelly and their private talkative love, everything Deeks. Then escape into the night along the coast. The car spinning and the sensation of flight.

And in the morning? Umar scoured the paper again for funeral news that never came. Sonic for lunch and Boat’s at night, the hammer louder every minute. Until one night, finally, details overheard and recorded frantically into Umar’s diary.

The cemetery was thick with mourners. Umar, tearful inside his hood, sketched the scene into his diary, hidden behind the mausoleum. All of Gary’s co-workers wore their Sonic uniforms in a final act of solidarity for Rita. Transexual audience for a beautiful man woman. And these others among the crowd -- lovers?, Umar asked the diary. And among them a girl, small, tender, her face torn with grief. Gary’s daughter? Rita junior? The hammer’s pace quickened.

He followed her from the cemetery and through the night. He slept in his Civic outside her home, recording every thought into his diary. Her name was Bree, Gary’s only child. To and from work, days into weeks, months, ingratiating himself into her life. Over time the hammer subsided. Over time they married and moved to Michigan, the sounds of their love drowning the hammer entirely.

Then, seven years after the funeral, Bree found Umar’s diary and everything went truly to shit.

∞

Building on the momentum from their critically acclaimed debut, Friday Night returns with an epic sequel that is a culmination of raw musical ambition and overblown Hollywood absurdity. Saturday Night picks up the story of tragic figures Dave and Umar several years after the violent wreck that would change the course of their lives and ultimately make them marked men.

With each other as their only allies, Dave & Umar embark on a strange journey to clear their names. Through alligator-infested swamps, and lonely country roads, to the mean streets of Memphis - they race to stay one step ahead of the vengeful forces and jilted wives hot on their trail.